Shandong Province – Credit Wikipedia
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The case reports continue to trickle out of China today, with word of a fifth case from Shandong Province; a 4 year-old who is the child of the first case, reported on Tuesday (see H7N9: Shandong Case Confirmed).
While epidemiologically linked, officials state that there is no evidence of H2H (human-to-human) transmission.
This report (h/t Diane Morin on FluTrackers) from Xinhua News.
In Shandong, experts confirmed an H7N9 bird flu case in the city of Zaozhuang on Sunday. The patient, a four-year-old boy surnamed Zhang, developed a fever on Saturday.
The boy is the son of Shandong's first confirmed H7N9 patient. But initial investigation found no evidence of human-to-human infection, according to a statement from the provincial public health department.
The statement said the boy is in stable condition.
As we’ve seen in the past, when it comes to proving human-to-human transmission of a virus, the bar is usually set pretty high.
If there are other, equally plausible explanations – such as a common environmental exposure – then H2H transmission cannot automatically be assumed.
But even if H2H did occur, we’ve seen other instances of that before with this virus (and with H5N1) – where no additional cases were detected - and so one shouldn’t read too much into it.
Here is the World Health Organization’s messaging on family clusters, from a little more than a week ago.
Next, the syntax challenged announcement from the Shandong department of Health, then a few more excerpts from the Xinhua report.
Shandong Province new case of human infection of H7N9 avian influenza cases
[2013-04-28]
April 28 , Shandong new case of human infection of H7N9 avian influenza confirmed cases. Children Zhang, male, 4 years old, live in Zaozhuang City Central, the father of Shandong Province, the first case of human infection with the H7N9 avian influenza confirmed cases.
April 27 Fever symptoms in children, 28 provincial-level expert group according to the results of laboratory tests and clinical manifestations and epidemiological investigation, the overall judgment that the human infection in children with confirmed cases of the H7N9 avian influenza.
Currently, children with the disease is still stable, Zaozhuang City, a hospital for treatment. According to the initial findings and conclusion of the study at home and abroad, has not yet found evidence of infection. Up to now, Shandong Province reported a total of human infection with the H7N9 avian influenza confirmed cases of two cases.
From Xinhua News:
More H7N9 cases reported in China
BEIJING, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Five more H7N9 bird flu cases were confirmed Sunday in four Chinese provinces, according to local health authorities.
The latest confirmed cases came from east China's Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Shandong provinces, as well as southeast China's Fujian Province.
<SNIP>
Xu Jianguo, a researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday that the chance of a major H7N9 outbreak is slim, although the situation must not be taken lightly and monitoring should be intensified.
"The biggest technical obstacle for prevention is that we don't know where the virus-carrying birds are or where they will go," Xu said, adding that the epidemic is not likely to disappear soon.
Xu said human infections are not related to seasonal changes.
He called for focusing on effective efforts to control sources of infection
